ON THE MILLION WOMEN MARCH

I learned this week that my blog has another reader, besides my daughter.  My daughter is excuse enough for me to continue this, but thank you Lane!  I am encouraged to write more…..

Much has happened this week, in Egypt, and Libya, and the U.S. that deserves response, but I have been most moved to reflect on the “Million Women March” that took place on International Women’s Day (Tuesday, March 8^th), in

Taharir Square

.

[First, a note on why I insist on spelling it “Taharir” as opposed to “Tahrir,” as in most other sources.  Transliteration from Arabic to English is an imperfect science, but the way I hear native Arabic speakers pronounce this word sounds more like “Taharir” to me, since the “h” in this word is aspirated.]  

I was not at all surprised to learn that less than a thousand people showed up for the “Million Women March,” or that so many “anti-feminist” men showed up and began attacking women.  Various theories have been proposed as to why so few responded to the call for women to demonstrate for their rights, among them:

            -    the demonstration was not planned well enough in advance or well advertised;

-    women in Egypt are still too subjugated in a patriarchal society to get out and

     demand their rights (i.e., feminism has not yet taken hold in Egyptian society);

-         both women and the male members of their families consider women to be too

vulnerable to possible abuse in such a public forum.

Various theories have also been proposed for why a large group of men launched a counter-protest and attacked the women and the men who tried to protect them:

-         these men were anti-feminists opposed to women’s rights;

-         they were men whose understanding of Islam precludes women holding positions of authority over men (i.e., President of Egypt, etc.);

-         they were men who have been deposed of their previous positions of privilege in Mubarak – era Egypt, who were taking advantage of yet another chance to oppose any kind of change (i.e., Mubarak thugs trying to disrupt yet another manifestation of the revolution). 

All of these theories might have some marginal applicability, but they miss, I believe, the main reason why so few Egyptian women showed up in

Taharir Square

for this particular demonstration. 

The issue of women’s rights in Egypt is a potent one for me.  I began to research this topic twenty-one years ago, as a Ph.d. candidate at the University of Kansas.  I interviewed Egyptian “feminists” in Cairo, old and young, secular and Islamic.  I wrote a paper which won an award, and presented at conferences on the topic.  But when it came to choosing a focus for my dissertation, I backed away from feminism in Egypt.  Some of the women I interviewed had been imprisoned.  I had learned that carrying forward with that research could be viewed with suspicion by the Mubarak government, and I did not want to put my in-laws in political jeopardy, through their association with me.  I, as a U.S. citizen, could always leave Egypt.  They could not.  Most women I know in Egypt have stayed away from political controversy in general.  Their main concern under the dictatorship has been keeping their families safe. 

Discussions of “feminism” and “women’s rights” in Egypt (and the rest of the Middle East) were initially equated with “westernization,” and the history of colonization and imperialism.  The first generation of Egyptian feminists were western educated, and tended to challenge religious authority.  By the early 1990s, I found a few pioneering Muslim women who were searching for new definitions of feminism within Islam, the so-called “Islamic feminists.”  They were beginning to find their voices in a society looking to its religious heritage for an indigenous model of organization and development.  But any meaningful discussion of religion was blocked by a dictatorial regime threatened by destabilizing progress.  At the same time, understanding of religion was unduly influenced by the rigidly uncompromising and misogynist Wahabi / Salafi interpretation of Islam (thanks to the largess of oil-rich Saudi Arabia.)  [See Khaled Abou El-Fadl’s The Great Theft for a complete explanation of how this happened.]  As a consequence, the development of a fully articulated indigenous feminist perspective in Egypt and the rest of the Muslim world was stymied.  I expect much progress in this regard moving forward.

But that brings me back to this week in

Taharir Square

.  I learned that one of the organizers of the demonstration on Tuesday was Nawal El Sadawi, one of the early “secular” feminists in Egypt.  I was not familiar with the names of other organizers, but I do know that El Sadawi is viewed with suspicion by the middle class Muslims I know.  Her crime is to be equated with western-style secularism, a non-starter in most of Egyptian society.  Noble as her aims may be in seeking to right the many injustices against women in Egypt, she will never bring a million Egyptian women to

Taharir Square

.  What is more, if the primary organizers of the march could be perceived to be too “westernized” to be attuned to the sensibilities of most Egyptians, this could be misused – and it looks like it was – as a ruse by disenfranchised Mubarak supporters to justify their attack on the demonstration and the demonstrators themselves. 

The Egyptian women I know do not claim their rights as women by demonstrating in public forums. They are Facebook organizers, and many stood along with the men in

Taharir Square

during the first weeks of the revolution.  But whether or not they were visible in front of the cameras, the idea that they are not as involved in the Egyptian revolution as the men is laughable – a thought that would not occur to the Egyptian revolutionaries, male or female.  The women I know in Egypt perceive themselves, and are perceived by the men I know, as co-equals.  They understand and take responsibility for their essential role in the foundational unit of Egyptian society – the family. The women I know are either full partners, or take the lead in running the affairs of their families, whether or not they also work outside the home.  They suffer and fight for the preservation of their families, but the younger among them are more likely to leave abusive husbands or loveless marriages, or choose not to marry (or re-marry after divorce).  They are highly educated, and take the lead in educating their children.  Many of them are professionals:  physicians, teachers, lawyers, entrepreneurs, university deans, and some are now considering running for political office in the new Egypt.  They tend not to go to mosques, preferring to practice their religion in their own homes.  They do not debate arcane references to women in Qur’an that some use as ammunition to deny women their rights.  They simply understand the Qur’anic emphasis on equality for men and women in Islam, and they quietly act on that understanding in running their lives, their work, and their families.

The notion that there needed to be a separate demonstration of and for women in

Taharir Square

would have felt to them, I believe, like a foreign idea.  And this, in my opinion, is the main reason that the demonstration was poorly attended.  I have no doubt that we will be hearing much from the women of Egypt moving forward.  But, as with everything else about this revolution, it will be on their terms, in their voices, their way.